Identifying A Black Swan Event
Based on the author's criteria:
- The event is a surprise (to the observer).
- The event has a major effect.
- After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but unaccounted for in risk mitigation programs. The same is true for the personal perception by individuals.
An example Taleb uses to explain his theory is the events of September 11, 2001. 9/11 was a shock to many observers. Its ramifications continue to be felt in many ways: increased levels of government control; "preventive" strikes or wars by Western governments. The coordinated, successful attack on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon using commercial airliners was virtually unthinkable to many at the time. However, with the benefit of hindsight, it has come to be seen as a predictable incident in the context of the changes in terrorist tactics.
Read more about this topic: Black Swan Theory
Famous quotes containing the words identifying, black, swan and/or event:
“And the serial continues:
Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,
A frieze that lengthens continually, in the lucky way
Friezes do, and no plot is produced,
Nothing you could hang an identifying question on.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Magnified one thousand times, the insect
Looks farcically human; laugh if you will!
Bald head, stage-fairy wings, blear eyes,
A caved-in chest, hairy black mandibles,
Long spindly thighs.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“But all is changed, that high horse riderless,
Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode
Where the swan drifts upon a darkening flood.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The Republican convention, an event with the intellectual content of a Guns’n’Roses lyric attended by every ofay insurance broker in America who owns a pair of white shoes.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)